Long day's journey into one very long night

The reason I went to see Wake was because of Gale Harold, who gives a superbly credible performance here as Kyle, one of the four Riven brothers who reunite for one long night of insane plotting and torturous reminiscing, culminating in disaster (as these nights always do). What sets this film apart from other dysfunctional family reunion rehashes is how realistic it feels -- you genuinely get the sense that these four wrecks actually share history, which is very hard to depict - most writers wind up over-stating the facts to let the audience in on it, but first-time screenwriter Henry LeRoy Finch manages to convey their shared anguish without doing this -- he tells us just enough, relying on mood and the actions of the characters to fill in the rest.